Today: On her 100th birthday, Julia Child shows us how to cut zucchini down to size.

If you want to get me to pay attention to an email, start it off with "the promiscuous zucchini". (And it is promiscuous. For more on zucchini's antics, put down -- or throw away -- Fifty Shades of Grey and read last week's Down & Dirty.)

So mainecook61 writes to me, "Hmm, the promiscuous zucchini is underserved in the genius department. August is as bad as July; they just keep on coming."

When you start to resent the zucchini, you could hide it in quick breads or -- my mother's trick -- split, hollow and fill the cavities of the bigger specimens with taco-like stuffings of rice and ground meat to distract and confuse the children. (It works.)

Or you could do as the great Julia Child (whose 100th birthday is today!) did, and cut them down to size. Two-plus pounds of zucchini doesn't look so demanding once you shred, salt, and squeeze it dry. It sheds its water weight, leaving a tamed pile and a lot of green, lightly salted liquid.

From here, Child offers no fewer than 6 different preparations. You could simply warm the shreds through with onions and garlic, as pictured below, or simmer in cream. (In Amanda's latest summer pasta, she doesn't cook it at all.)

Any way you choose, the pre-salting and squeezing step is essential to keep your dish from flooding in the cooking, which could leave it soggy and dim.

This is particularly important in Child's most cleverly constructed zucchini shred iteration, in which she paves them into a tian, or gratin.

It's one of those thoughtful, self-perpetuating recipes that could make a very elegant flow chart. The zucchini juice that you've squeezed out forms the base to a light bechamel, topped off with a little milk.

You add enough par-cooked rice to soak up whatever juices remain and thicken the sauce, without asserting itself as empty filler. Then you sprinkle in a bit of sharp parmesan, and bake it till it's freckled and golden.

What all this means is that while this tian gives airs of a rich dish, it has no cream or butter and its luxurious base is largely vegetable water. And it's not because Child was afraid of butter -- it's just good that way.

As mainecook61 points out, the tian is also substantial enough for a main dish (or a generous side) and, best of all, can be made ahead.

Zucchini, you little minx. You've never looked so classy, and yet so sensible.

I'm an ex-economist, ex-Californian who moved to New York to work in food media in 2007. Dodgy career choices aside, I can't help but apply the rational tendencies of my former life to things like: recipe tweaking, digging up obscure facts about pizza, and deciding how many pastries to put in my purse for "later."

Comments (19)

Made this last night! It was absolutely fantastic. I'm only sorry that until now, I've always discarded the liquid from the zucchini. What a fabulous treasure it is. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

My future husband and I lived in Brooklyn but were married on the beach in Amagansett. It was a small wedding party, only ten. I made this dish which we carried in our decrepit Chevy to serve with the spring lamb we B-B-Qed for dinner. That was 24-years ago and I still make this dish at least every other year in April. Thank-you Julia.

This was absolutely perfect for dinner last night and was paired with a simple roast chicken and a chilled bottle of Robert Sinskey's 2011 Vin Gris. A real hit at the table. Couldn't think of a better tribute to Julia to celebrate her 100th birthday. The most important lesson I learned from watching her shows in the late 1960s was to simply be fearless. And it worked! I charged into the kitchen as an avid cook in my teens, making dinner frequently for the family and I've never stopped. Thanks to her tutoring, and my Belgian mother's, I was never intimidated by a recipe, no matter how complex. I am forever indebted to Julia. Happy Birthday, Julia!!!

I made the zucchini tian tonight and it was wonderful. I replaced the onion with scallions, but other than that stuck to the original.
The rice was a bit too soft for my taste (I am Italian and can't get away from the whole "al dente" thing) and I wonder if I could skip the parboiling step next time. What might be the downside of doing that?

I always want to introduce the interesting more complex flavoring and textures of whole grains when a recipe invites that treatment. So here's how i changed this recipe tonight.
I used 2 lb of zucchini (which yielded 1 cup of zucchini juice, to which i added 1/2 c. milk. This replaced the original 2 1/2 cups liquid.) I used 2 T of spelt flour (milder flavor than wh wheat)instead of white, and i used 1 1/2 cup cooked short grain brown rice instead of the white rice. I added a bit of grated nutmeg to the milk sauce and, in the end, i folded in 1/8 cup raw sunflower seeds, for texture.
It turned ot beautifully.

This sounds like just my kind of adaptation! Just to be clear though, you only used 1 1/2 cups of liquid instead of 2 1/2 cups? Probably because you used already cooked rice instead of raw?
Thanks much!

Ah, Julia, my hero! I stopped at the farmers market on my way home and bought 4 zucchinis. Made this in Julia's honor and toasted her birthday. Great taste of summer in the tian. The state of the kitchen post preparation, every inch of my tiny kitchen counter bearing a dirty dish or pan, reminded me of when I cooked straight out of "Mastering" night after night, right out of college. No dishwashuer in those days, though. Julia on TV inspired me or cook!

I don't have a garden or a CSA box, but I buy and we eat a ton of zucchini throughout the summer. (Usually I grill or use one of the stove-top recipes from FOOD52.) I can hardly wait to make this. In fact, it's on the menu for tomorrow evening! ;o)